Don Spatz: Living in Reading a pricey choice

If you were that middle-class family that Reading wants to attract back, what incentive do you have?

Well, let's see.

Say you can afford to buy a $200,000 home in a nice neighborhood. The real estate transfer tax that's split between buyer and seller will cost you $3,000 more in Reading than it would for the same home in Exeter Township.

Welcome to Reading.

Suppose you and your wife both work and between you make $100,000.

With Monday's passage of tax hikes, the earned-income tax will cost you $2,600 more in Reading than the same salary in Muhlenberg Township.

Welcome to Reading.

Your home's assessment likely is about $140,000.

Your city property tax will be $1,000 more than the next highest-taxed municipality, West Reading, for that same house. It's also $1,400 higher than Muhlenberg or Cumru, $1,600 higher than Exeter or Spring.

Welcome to Reading.

Your school property tax will be lower than elsewhere, only because the state is annually dumping tens of millions of your state tax dollars into the Reading School District that nobody else gets, and the deficit-spending state isn't expected to keep it coming.

Welcome to Reading.

And that's before you start comparing the services you get, the crime - Reading is the 41st most dangerous big city in the nation, and it's crowing because that's better than it was - the schools and the neighborhoods.

Welcome to Reading, a city so undisciplined that the administration paid $10.5 million in regular bills last year from the sewer fund, violating a federal court order, and now risks hefty federal penalties.

Welcome to Reading, a city so loosely run that it didn't have a cash-flow statement until this year when its state-hired consultants ordered one. The report's first find? The city would run out of money by November.

Welcome to Reading, where the mayor a week ago warned that property taxes might rise 25 percent to 50 percent in 2012, atop the 20 percent hike in 2011.

It's no wonder that of the city's 635 employees, 480 of them live outside the city.

I'm part of a middle-class family planning to move.

Can somebody tell me why it's worth spending $7,000 more just the first year to move to Reading rather than its suburbs, when it promises more hits to come?